An accident in which two locomotives collided and crushed a man's leg at the Dunedin Rail yard last year cost the company tens of thousands of dollars and has resulted in a review of safety procedures.
Some workers made redundant earlier this year at KiwiRail's Hillside Engineering workshops may be rehired on short-term contracts following talks yesterday between management and the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU).
The first rake of railway carriages to be designed and built in New Zealand since 1941 rolled out of Hillside workshops in Dunedin yesterday, bound for Christchurch.
The union behind redundant Hillside rail workers has renewed calls for Parliament to address the concerns of almost 14,000 people who want to keep rail-manufacturing jobs in New Zealand.
A round of proposed job cuts at KiwiRail's Woburn, Lower Hutt, workshops has been halted after a group resignation of workers pre-empted it.
Hillside worker redundancies, after owner KiwiRail decided to accept Chinese tenders to build rolling stock, have united opponents across the political and business divide.
John de Bueger warns about the danger of buying on price alone.
Hillside workers will find out the fate of 40 job-threatened positions at the South Dunedin engineering workshop this afternoon, but not before they make a last-ditch protest against the controversial KiwiRail proposal.
A rail and Maritime Transport Union delegate at Hillside has likened rail workers being told they had lost their job yesterday to "plucking sheep out of a herd".
Hillside union delegates have labelled a visit by KiwiRail chief executive Jim Quinn to Dunedin this morning as "morally repugnant'' given the expected confirmation of 40 job cuts at the South Dunedin engineering outfit later this afternoon.
Kiwirail management is about to begin its final deliberations on which Hillside jobs are likely to go, after a consultation period with employees and union delegates ended yesterday - the eve of a public rally campaigning for a change of heart.
Speakers are lining up to support the Save Hillside jobs campaign at a public rally in the Octagon today.
The Government can step in and do the right thing over contracts to build wagons in China rather than at Hillside, Dunedin, the Rail and Maritime Transport Union South Island organiser John Kerr says
Stalled negotiations between Hillside Workshop delegates and KiwiRail bosses are back on track, after a union campaign to save 40 jobs at the South Dunedin engineering plant secured an important deadline extension yesterday.
The next event in the battle to save Hillside Engineering workshops will see supporters taking to the streets in a rally.
Hillside workers have been prohibited from speaking to media about the threat of looming job cuts, after KiwiRail bosses issued a communications policy to employees yesterday - three months after it took effect.
A packed public meeting in South Dunedin last night slammed a KiwiRail decision to cut 41 jobs at the Hillside workshops, as a line-up of political, council and business figures vowed to fight the Government and keep skilled jobs in the city.
Work is continuing to clear the railway line south of Kaikoura, after a landslide derailed a northbound freight train late on Monday night.
Work is continuing to clear the railway line south of Kaikoura, after a North Canterbury landslide derailed a northbound freight train late last night.
KiwiRail engineers are this morning trying to clear a slip south of Kaikoura that partially derailed a freight train overnight.
